


A Little Less Conversation (A Little More Action, Please)

by kindahannah



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Coffee Shops & Cafés, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/M, Jon and the Starks Are Not Related, Pining, Slow Burn, alternately titled: the most self-indulgent au fic of all time, but knowing me he'll probably show up later, but theyre both STUBBORN, everyone is a matchmaker, jon is kind of a targaryen but also not really, nobody is dead and everything is great, oh also jon snow and the starks dont know each other, spoiler alert: jon and sansa are soulmates, the lack of robb stark is criminal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-21
Updated: 2019-05-31
Packaged: 2020-03-08 23:37:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18904963
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindahannah/pseuds/kindahannah
Summary: She understands the system. Everyone is born with a letter on them somewhere and the letter is supposed to be the first letter of your soulmate’s name. Sansa has a tiny A stamped on the inside of her right pinky finger, which means that someone, somewhere, has an S on their left pinky. She’s supposed to find whoever that person is and, as soon as they touch for the first time, she’ll gain the second letter of their name, and so on and so forth until the name is complete.Or, the one in which Sansa and Jon are most definitely soulmates, but neither of them will admit it, so who can blame their friends for getting involved?





	1. One

**Author's Note:**

> The end of Game of Thrones sent me into an All-American rage so I'm here to supply us with the Jonsa content we deserved, yet were cheated out of! In a modern, soulmate indulgent universe, of course! 
> 
> This was meant to be a one-shot but then I got too many ideas and so I had to break it up into a few parts so we could get all the slow burn, pining, goodness that is any Jonsa fic written by me, apparently.
> 
> Enjoy!

It isn’t that Sansa Stark hates the idea of soulmates. She  _ doesn’t _ . In fact, the notion that there was someone out there who’s supposedly perfect for her in every way sounds like a dream come true. Sansa’s problem with soulmates is just that—they’re only a dream. 

She understands the system. Everyone is born with a letter on them somewhere and the letter is supposed to be the first letter of your soulmate’s name. Sansa has a tiny  **A** stamped on the inside of her right pinky finger, which means that someone, somewhere, has an  **S** on their left pinky. She’s supposed to find whoever that person is and, as soon as they touch for the first time, she’ll gain the second letter of their name, and so on and so forth until the name is complete. 

It’s all so… perfect. Too perfect. 

The thing is, Sansa  _ used  _ to believe, wholeheartedly, that she’d find her soulmate. She used to cling to the idea that there was someone  _ perfect  _ for her out there. But that was back when she was a naive, little girl. That was back before flipping through overpriced teen magazines convinced her that she should have a few notches on her bedpost before she met her soulmate. That was back before  _ Ramsay Bolton _ came into her life and tore apart every last shred of hope she had in soulmates—or in love at all.

Now she’s older, and wiser, and she  _ knows  _ that finding her soulmate is nothing but a silly, childhood dream. She can’t let herself be hurt again, so she  _ won’t _ —even if that means closing herself off from soulmates entirely. They don’t matter anymore. They  _ can’t  _ matter anymore.

It was only after she packed her bags and went off to university in King’s Landing that she realized how much of an anomaly she really was for swearing off her soulmate. 

To people there, finding your soulmate, or  _ trying _ to, is like a class that everyone seems to be enrolled in. Even now, after three years at school, she still finds herself having to explain herself to the invasive lab partner, cashier, or drunk sorority girl who finds it perfectly reasonable to pry into her personal life while she’s just trying to  _ mind her own business, thank you very much. _

The only friend she has who  _ isn’t  _ latched onto the idea of soulmates is her  _ sister,  _ who—thank the Seven—came to King’s Landing University on scholarship for lacrosse. It’s almost laughable, really, considering how harshly she and Arya clashed as children, but now she’s  _ thankful  _ to have someone she doesn’t need to explain herself to. 

Even so, she’ll occasionally catch Arya—who is only a romantic very,  _ very  _ deep at heart, though Sansa would  _ never  _ be as brave as to say such, lest she get her ears boxed in—trying to catch a glimpse at the tattoos of people around her, or glancing at her own to check if it had changed after interacting with someone new. 

Sansa, herself, quickly grew irritated of having to shove her hand into her pocket or ball it into a fist whenever prying eyes caught a glimpse of it and, instead, began to wear a ring that covered the **A** on her pinky from any unwanted gazes. It’s only fair, she thought. She _never_ tried to seek out anyone else’s soulmate tattoo. Frankly, it feels like an invasion of privacy because she _knows_ she isn’t trying to find her soulmate.

Even if she  _ did  _ buy into the soulmate legend, she has her hands full trying to balance the workload that came along with her decision to declare a second major at the beginning of the year. She’d been absolutely certain with the multimedia journalism major she’d entered college with, but somehow the philosophy class she’d taken as a gen-ed during the second semester of her sophomore year had  _ hooked  _ her—not enough to the point that she was ready to abandon her lifelong dream of becoming a journalist, but instead to the point that she decided being a double major was the way to go. 

Which, like, she’s kind of regretting now, as soon as she begins to drown in her course load. Turns out, being a Philosophy major involves writing  _ a lot  _ of papers—as if her initial major doesn’t give her enough papers to write, as is. Currently, her life is being consumed by her Existentialism class. More specifically, by the 400-point paper that is one of only  _ four  _ grades in the class for the entire semester.

And, of course, it’s a paper on how soulmates can exist within existentialism. Unsurprisingly, during the discussion they had on soulmates in class, almost everyone spent the entire period listing the various ways that they could. Even her  _ professor  _ seemed to be entirely on board with the whole soulmate system, meaning that Sansa is already taking a huge risk with her paper—which, of course, is going to assert that soulmates fundamentally oppose the idea that humans have free will and, arguably, make them less human by forcing them to determine their lives by an imposed institution. If she’s going to be writing a paper that goes against the beliefs of every single one of her classmates  _ and  _ her professor, then she has to make it absolutely perfect.

Which should be easy, because—not to brag, or anything—Sansa has been praised on the power and the thoughtfulness with which she writes. It  _ should  _ be easy, and yet, she’s struggling. 

She’s been too busy for the last few days with everything else she had to do for her other classes, the first chance she gets to sit down and really work on the stupid essay is Friday at nearly  _ midnight _ . Except, she couldn’t find a single open spot in the entire library—because apparently nobody in the whole university has anything better to do on a Friday night than to hole up in the library—and she’s only gotten, like, five hours of sleep in the last  _ three days  _ because becoming an associate editor for the school’s newspaper means that all she does is stay up late editing  _ every article _ . 

Nearly frustrated to the point of  _ tears,  _ Sansa manages to remember one of her friends, Margaery, telling her about a twenty-four hour coffee shop that’s just recently opened on King’s Road—just a quick walk from campus. Granted, Margaery had only told her about it because she thought that one of the baristas was, quote,  _ hot in a brooding sort of way  _ and  _ totally your type, Sansa  _ and not to sing praises of their espresso. Still, she’s fully aware that she’ll  _ literally  _ pass out in the next ten minutes if she doesn’t get caffeine in her,  _ stat,  _ so even the worst of coffee will do at this point. 

Whether or not a hot, brooding barista  _ is  _ completely her type is  _ completely  _ unrelated.

_ The Night’s Watch  _ is the name of the shop, according to the sign hanging outside—which, she’ll admit, is a spectacularly clever. The inside is nice, cozy in a way she hasn’t felt since leaving the North to come to King’s Landing for university in the first place. Everything about it—from the stone wall interior to the faint smell of cedarwood and campfire—reminds her so pleasantly of  _ home  _ that she decides, immediately, that she likes the place.

She’s in the middle of examining some of the more bizarre flavor options featured on their menu when a dark-haired, broad-shouldered man in a flour-covered apron approaches her. The grin on his face is enough to let her know that he  _ isn’t  _ the brooding barista Margaery mentioned previously—unless the South has pathetic standards for what qualifies as brooding, exactly—but he’s still unfairly attractive so, like… what the fuck?

“Can I help you with anything?” The barista— _ Gendry _ , Sansa reads off the nametag pinned to his uniform—and, right. Her face is probably screwed up in the most unattractive of ways, and her mother would be  _ ashamed  _ at her lack of proper, human manners. 

“What I’d really like is an IV bag of straight Espresso, but since I don’t see that on the menu I’ll take an Americano, double shot.” Sansa responds, trying her best to recover from her unladylike slip-up.

The corner of Sansa’s lips turn up in a smile when she looks back up to find the price of her drink and sees the look of pity and understanding from Barista Gendry instead of the indignation he could have offered her for the way she gaped at him. “That’ll be $3.63. Big exam?”

Sansa shakes her head as she sets her money on the counter between them. “Worse. This god-awful paper for my Existentialism class. It’s like a quarter of my grade.” 

“The soulmates one?” Barista Gendry asks, and he shudders when Sansa nods her confirmation. “One of my mates who works here took that class last year and I swear I had to pick up a week’s worth of his shifts because all the turmoil it caused him.”

Sansa feels an odd sense of relief when she realizes that she’s  _ not  _ the only one who hates the essay.  _ Maybe  _ if Barista Gendry’s friends hated it as much as she does, then, _ maybe, _ she isn’t alone in her beliefs. “It’s the worst. You know we’re supposed to write about how soulmates exist within existentialism, except they obviously  _ don’t,  _ so I’m taking a huge risk on an essay worth a quarter of my grade by writing about how soulmates take away your freedom.” Sansa forces herself to swallow her words once she realizes that what she’s saying is a complete and utter social  _ faux pas _ —not that talking about soulmates themselves is seen as tactless, but insulting them so openly usually is. That  _ and  _ she’s talking poor Gendry’s ear off at nearly midnight.

Barista Gendry, however, doesn’t seem annoyed, or even nonplussed, by her words. Instead, he has an intrigued expression on his face as he makes Sansa’s coffee. “Is that right?” His question is genuinely curious, not condescending like what Sansa typically receives when people learn her views on soulmates. “I don’t know much about philosophy on soulmates aside from the mainstream view, but I think that’s an interesting approach. What makes you say that?”

Sansa is strangely validated by the way that Gendry prompts her to continue. She’s well aware that she’s an oddity, as far as soulmates are concerned, and although she’s never let it shut her up, it  _ is  _ reassuring to hear that people actually care about her opinions, rather than just ignoring them altogether. Even his use of the word  _ interesting _ —which so many others have used to backhandedly tell her that she’s  _ strange, odd, wrong _ —doesn’t feel like an insult. “In my opinion, the root of existentialism is that life doesn’t have a purpose—which sounds so depressing, but really it’s just saying that you’re not defined by a purpose assigned to you by a higher power. You have to define your own life through the decisions that you make, not the decisions that the universe makes for you. Soulmates just don’t seem realistic to me so I don’t have any particular interest in finding mine.”

“So you don’t believe in them at all?” Gendry questions, once again nothing but genuine. 

Sansa shakes her head. “Not really. I mean, I get that some people find their soulmates and are super happy with them forever, which is great. I think everyone who hears that I’m not concerned with ever finding my soulmate just assumes that I hate them but that’s not really the case. I just… I don’t know. I guess I don’t like the idea of not being in control of my own decisions. Whoever I end up with, I want to know that it’s because I really love them and not because I  _ think  _ I love them because I know they’re my soulmate.”

Gendry seems to understand that, if his expression is anything to go by. It’s rare. Sansa can count on one hand the number of people who have not only listened long enough to hear her out but  _ also  _ understood them. It makes her want to be Gendry’s friend. “I get it. I mean, I don’t really have any strong beliefs towards soulmates quite yet, but I’d like to think that it’ll still be in my hands. The universe brings them to me, whoever they are, but I still get to choose if they’re a load of shit or not.”

He sounds so much like Arya when he says it, Sansa can only partially blame the snort of laughter that leaves her on her exhausted delirium.

Gendry’s gaze turns questioning as he hands Sansa her coffee, trying to figure out what’s so funny. “Sorry. You just remind me a lot of my sister. She thinks the same way.” 

“Well, if she reminds you of me then she’s probably fantastic.” Gendry grins at her. And,  _ actually,  _ Sansa might be onto something here. Arya would love Gendry. Gendry is completely Arya’s type. 

And, then, as if  _ on cue,  _ Gendry lifts an arm to rub at the back of his neck and presents Sansa with a glimpse of what is, undeniably, a black  **A** of his own tucked right where his the sleeve of his t-shirt ends. Sansa has seen Arya’s own soulmate tattoo on her tricep enough times to know that it’s a tiny  **G** and— _ Seven fucking Hells,  _ could this  _ be  _ any more  _ perfect?  _

She’s so busy concocting her scheme of how to set the two up without it being completely obvious and awkward that she doesn’t even notice Gendry wrapping up a muffin. “Here, this one’s on the house. For all the trauma this paper is giving you. But if it’s any consolation, from what I’ve just heard you’re already off to a great start.”

_ Well,  _ Sansa decides, taking the muffin into her hand with a grin,  _ if Arya doesn’t want him, then maybe Sansa will just take him for herself. _

* * *

Jon Snow is not a romantic. Not even close. Not in the slightest. Although, who could really blame him for that when the first love story he’d ever been told was one of pain, and heartbreak, and utterly piece-of-shit fathers?

Lyanna Snow and Rhaegar Targaryen weren’t soulmates, technically. The both of them were among the anomalies of society, born without a soulmate tattoo at all, but that did little to stifle the romance that quickly blossomed between them. 

Rhaegar had been the vision of Lyanna’s childhood dreams, a prince in all but name who had swept her off her feet the moment they met with sweet words and grand gestures. She’d given up everything for him, left her family and her home to marry him, and he had still ran off on her—ran off on their family—only a few months after their son was born without even having the decency to say goodbye. 

Not long after that, a man named Oberyn Martell took both Lyanna and her young son into his own home, where the plot only thickened. 

As it turned out, Lyanna Snow wasn’t the first woman whose heart Rhaegar Targaryen had shattered. Elia Martell, Oberyn’s sister, had been fed all the same lies—right up to convincing her to name their first son Aegon, after his father—and had been manipulated and dumped into the same fate as Lyanna. 

The ending of the story was happy enough, all things considered. They became a blended family, of sorts, though they all quickly agreed that having  _ two  _ Aegon’s running around was a bit too confusing, even for them. Given that the older Aegon was already nearly three and fairly accustomed to his own name, it was Lyanna’s son that was renamed as Jon Snow.

Now, twenty-one years later, Jon is familiar enough with the story, however happy his bizarre psuedo-uncle Oberyn tried to make it, to know that he wants absolutely nothing to do with love. Unlike his mother, though, Jon was unfortunate enough to be born with a soulmate tattoo, inevitably linking him to someone, somewhere, forever. 

The only solace he has regarding the entire situation is that whoever was unlucky to be saddled with the role of his soulmate had an  **A** etched into the side of their pinky, the same place where a tiny  **S** resides on his own. Really, he could evade his soulmate and whatever tumultuous relationship would inevitably follow for the rest of his life if he wanted.

And that was exactly what he intended to do, thank you very much. It was just  _ everyone else _ who wanted to fuck up his plans—specifically, his so-called-friends, who seemingly never got tired of trying to wear him down. 

That’s exactly why he remains completely and entirely unfazed when Gendry bursts into their apartment one night, announcing, “Jon, I’ve found your soulmate.”

“Uh-huh.” Jon monotones, unable to even muster up a facade of interest or tear his gaze away from the paper he’s writing. 

“Did you hear me?” Gendry prods, and Jon can already feel a soulmate-induced migraine coming on. 

“In his defense,” Theon pipes up from the couch, words muffled through a mouthful of cereal, “You said that last week.”

“But I’m  _ serious  _ this time.”

“You said that last week, too.”

“Okay,  _ but,  _ this girl has been coming around the shop for a solid  _ week  _ now and I’ve actually gotten to know her so I have good reason to believe she’s Jon’s soulmate this time.”

“Is it the red-head?” Theon’s voice sounds significantly more interested now, and Jon’s gaze almost,  _ almost,  _ wavers from its focus on his computer screen.

“It’s the red-head.” Gendry’s confirmation is the blow that breaks his resolve, silently admitting defeat as he closes his laptop and turns towards his friend’s smug grin. Which, like. Okay, it’s  _ valid,  _ considering that they both are apparently on the inside of something that he isn’t—and something that pertains directly to his own life, mind you.

“You don’t even know what my soulmate mark  _ is,  _ Gendry.” Jon reminds him, though his traitorous heart is already tugging his mind elsewhere. It’s as if it  _ knows  _ that he has a soulmate out there, waiting for him. Which is impossible, because his heart is an organ and not a sentient, thought-producing part of his body.

“I don’t have to!” Gendry counters without missing a beat. “You know that paper for your Existentialism class you had to write last year?” 

“The soulmates one?” Jon lifts an eyebrow, not entirely sure what reminding him of his Philosophy-related trauma has to do with, well,  _ anything.  _

Gendry points a finger at him in a gesture of confirmation. “Bingo! She’s been writing it this week and from what she’s told me, she’s writing almost the exact same paper that you did.”

And. Okay. Jon is, admittedly, thrown for a loop with that one because out of his  _ entire  _ lecture hall, nobody else had been dared to take the stance refuting the possibility of soulmates co-existing with existentialism, even though it was clearly right. Still, that doesn’t mean that she’s perfect for him. It doesn’t. Instead of even signaling that Gendry’s words have gotten to him, Jon decides on saying, “Jean Paul Sartre would be rolling in his grave right now if he knew you were using his ideology as a pawn to convince me into meeting this girl.”

“Jean Paul Sartre can suck my dick.” Theon asserts, and Jon can’t fight the way his eyes roll back into his head a little in exasperation at Theon’s crude attempt at a comeback. “Jon, listen. I’m your best friend, right?”

“ _ Best  _ is certainly debatable.” Jon replies, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Well, as your  _ best friend, _ ” Theon continues, ignoring Jon’s resistance to the fact the way he does best, “I’m saying that Gendry might be onto something here. Switch shifts with me tomorrow and you’ll see. She always comes in during the lunch rush.” 

Jon gives Theon an incredulous look, because if he’s  _ willingly  _ picking up Jon’s morning shift then he has to be serious about this—which is a sight so foreign that it’s almost uncomfortable. Finally, though, he caves. “Okay, fine, but if I go along with this hare-brained scheme of yours then you  _ both  _ have to promise you’ll stop trying to set me up with random girls.”

“Easy.” Gendry affirms, a shit-eating grin that rivaled even Theon’s making its way onto his face. “After you meet this girl I’m not going to have to try and set you up with anyone ever again.” 


	2. Two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WE'RE BACK BABY! And, no surprise, this chapter turned out LONGER THAN EXPECTED! So... I've decided that I'm changing things up a little bit and now the plan is for this story to have FOUR chapters instead of the THREE I was previously anticipating. Which... we all love drawn out pining, right? Right!
> 
> Also, full disclosure I was definitely planning on going with the idea that Theon ALSO didn't know the Starks, but I realized I physically cannot do it because the Theon-Arya-Robb and the Theon-Sansa brotps hold too big of a place in my heart to ever turn a blind eye to them! That being said, I had to work a few things around in this chapter to have everything line up well and that means the first part of this chapter (Sansa's) takes place BEFORE the second part of the last chapter (Jon's). Hopefully it isn't too confusing, but this way Theon can be the great friend and matchmaker we all know he was the capacity of being! 
> 
> Lastly, I wanted to thank EVERYONE who gave this work a kudos, a bookmark, or a comment! This all started off as something purely to satisfy my own trope-y Jonsa desires, and I'm SO GLAD that so many of y'all found some love in all this, too!
> 
> I think that's all I have to say for now, so... onwards! Hope you enjoy the second installment of this self-indulgent bit of fiction! <3

The thing is, Sansa likes to think she knows her sister pretty well. Despite the many years they spent at odds with each other as children, she knows that they’ve grown to both understand and appreciate each other to the point that Arya is one of the few people in the world that Sansa really, truly trusts.

And, because she knows her sister so well, she’s fully aware it’s in Arya’s own interest that she’s less than forthright about her intentions to set her up with Gendry, even if she _does_ think that they’re perfect for each other. If she were to just come out and say that she wanted to set them up, Arya would never agree. She’s too stubborn, and the romantic inside of her is too deeply buried for her to willingly go along with the scheme.

So, all on her own and in complete secrecy, Sansa begins her matchmaking. She starts to spend more and more time at The Night’s Watch, partially because it’s the _perfect_ place for her to get her work done when she functions best — at ungodly hours of night — and partially to get to know Gendry better and be confident that he and Arya really would be perfect for each other.

The dead of night isn’t exactly the busiest shift and, more often than not, it’s just the two of them when she frequents the shop. What she learns quickly about Gendry is that he is not only one of the kindest people she’s ever met, always having a coffee ready for her before she walks in, but also one of the funniest. He has a sharp wit that makes her feel like she’s back in the North with her brothers and their friends, and it’s so, so easy to see him as one of their own — part of the Stark Pack.

She also loves the coffeeshop, itself. It’s cozy, and familiar, and comfortable, and soon she begins to frequent the shop while it’s still light out, too. She’s started to feel so much like the shop is a second home to her that she’s completely floored when she walks in one seemingly normal afternoon to grab coffee while she has time between classes, and sees _Theon Fucking Greyjoy_ humming to himself and mopping the floor.

Which, like. The only other person she’s ever seen working here besides Gendry is a guy her age named Pod — who’s about the equivalent of a human puppy — and even though she _knows_ there were more than just those two employees, the last person she expected to see working here was her older brother’s childhood best friend who, as far as she knew, was attending Winterfell University.

“Theon?” She manages to get out after standing and gaping in silence for a few moments. It kind of helps that Theon looks just as surprised to see her when he turns around. “What are you — Since when have you — What?”

“I transferred from Winterfell U this year,” Theon supplies unhelpfully, a sheepish sort of smile taking over his features. Which, he _should_ be sheepish. He’s been in King’s Landing for _months_ without having the decency to tell her, or Arya for that matter.

“And you didn’t think to say hello?” She asks, nose turned up and hands on her hips. She feels so much like a spitting image of Catelyn Stark, herself, that she doesn’t even need to ask what’s so funny when Theon snorts at her.

“Sorry, Sansy-Pants.” Theon replies, only sounding half-apologetic, but it doesn’t matter because she’s so happy to see him.

It’s so ironic that it’s nearly laughable, the fact that the city and the school she spent years dreaming of as a child has only now started to feel like home — with the presence of her sister, and Robb’s annoying childhood friend, and a coffee shop that makes her feel like she’s back in the North. It kind of makes her want to question everything she’s ever known, but she doesn’t really have the time, energy, or emotional capacity for such a thing right now.

She and Theon slip into an easy sort of conversation as he brews her coffee, catching up on what's unfolded in their lives in the years while they’ve been apart, and it’s only when Theon mentions his roommate, _Gendry,_ that Sansa is reminded of her plan — and, like, if there’s _anyone_ in the world who would be willing to help her in such a diabolical scheme regarding the fate of Arya Stark, it’s Theon.

“Speaking of Gendry… I was wondering if he was seeing anyone?” Sansa begins, and Theon quirks an eyebrow at her, a mischievous grin taking over his features and, _no._ She knows what he’s thinking, and she has to shut that down _immediately._ “Not for me!”

“Oh, is that right?” Theon doesn’t look quite convinced, and she glares at him over the rim of her coffee cup. “Then who?”

“Arya. I think they’re soulmates.”

Theon sputters, nearly choking on his own coffee when she says it, and Sansa gets it. She does. Arya was, more or less, one of the boys growing up. She wouldn’t be able to picture it, either, if she were Theon.

Thankfully, she isn’t Theon. She’s smarter, and certainly right about this. She’s confident in that, so she presses on. “Come on, think about it. Really think about it.”

He does. He thinks about it so hard that Sansa can nearly see the gears turning in his head, and, after a few moments, she can also see the light bulb go off as it all clicks. “Okay, you might actually be right, but—”

“I’m definitely right.”

“ _But,_ unless Arya has gone through some _massive_ personality change in the last three years, there’s no way she’d ever let you set her up with someone.”

“Oh, never.” Sansa confirms, and Theon’s expression becomes significantly more confused. “That’s why I need your help.”

“What? Like you want _me_ to talk to her about it?”

Sansa sighs, exasperated. Apparently, Theon is just as useless as he’s ever been, which she's allowed think because he _is_ basically her brother. “No, _of course_ not. She’d be even less likely to go along with it if she knew he was your friend. No offense.”

“None taken.”

“Great. If we want to have any chance of pulling this off, we have to make sure that they fall in love on their own. Make them think it was all their idea.”

Theon nods slowly, looking deep in thought for a moment before a look of realization crosses his features. His eyes are alight in a way that feels almost dangerous, like Sansa should be afraid on her own behalf, but she pushes it to the side. This isn’t about her. “So, this is where you come in. What does Gendry’s schedule look like tomorrow?”

“He’s working this shift, actually. He’ll be in at three. Think you can make that work?” Theon says, the mischievous grin still on his face and growing wider with every second.

And though, _yes, it works perfectly,_ warning sirens start going off in Sansa’s head — the kind that she’d developed as a defense mechanism that was necessary growing up around the Disaster Trio that was Theon, Arya, and Robb. She narrows her eyes at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Am I looking at you in any particular way?” Theon asks, feigning innocence. Sansa narrows her eyes even further, and Theon’s grin grows so wide it looks as though it might crack his face. “Don’t worry about it, Sansy. The truth, reason, and love keep little company together, nowadays.”

Sansa _gapes_ at his words, recognizing them immediately from one of her own favorite plays. “Did you just—”

“I’m taking a Shakespearean Lit class right now.” Theon says, proud and matter-of-a-fact. “Don’t act so surprised.”

And, okay. If the fact that she’s scheming with _Theon Greyjoy_ to try and set _her sister_ up with someone wasn’t enough to make her feel like she’s entered some alternate universe, then hearing Theon quote _Shakespeare_ certainly is.

* * *

It’s been a whopping _twelve hours_ since Jon agreed to switch shifts with Theon and he’s still decidedly _not_ won over by the idea of his alleged soulmate that Gendry and Theon found for him. If anything, he’s _less_ eager about it, purely because he hates the afternoon shift at the shop.

Sure, it’s not nearly as busy as the morning rush he’s used to, but it’s significantly more obnoxious. Nobody ever tries to talk to him in the early hours of the morning. At six, everyone follows the same, unspoken code that it’s socially acceptable to ignore everything and everyone around you. At three, refusal to partake in small talk costs him his tip.

It’s also torture on the basis that, unlike the way crowds come in bursts with long lulls of an empty shop between them during his usual morning shifts, there is absolutely no downtime in the afternoon shift.

It’s terrible, and it’s put him in an incredibly sour mood. So sour that he’s given up on trying to get tips, entirely, and has resigned himself to accept the only way he’ll make it through this gods-forsaken shift alive is by immersing himself in the repetition of the coffee he’s making.

The only thing that manages to snap him out of his monotonous movements is the voice of a girl, who suddenly interrupts him as he’s about to finish up an _Americano, double shot._ “Is there any way you could you actually just… pour the espresso over the hot water, instead?”

Jon’s jaw clenches in irritation — because an Americano is literally the _easiest fucking drink to make_ and there is _no way_ this customer is about to tell him he’s making it wrong — but any snide comment threatening to fall from his lips is wiped away the moment that he looks up and is met with eyes _so fucking blue_ that all the breath leaves his body instantly.

He literally can’t do anything but stare — you know, like a fucking _creep_ — because she’s quite literally _the most beautiful girl he’s ever seen_ , and it seems that his speechlessness was incorrectly interpreted, though through no fault of the beautiful girl’s own, because her expression goes apologetic. “Sorry, it’s just — pouring the water over the espresso… it disrupts the espresso. At least, that’s what Gendry says.”

He blinks. _That's what G_ _endry says?_ Gendry knows this stunningly gorgeous stranger? And discusses coffee-making techniques with her? He’s confused, at first, but then everything comes together as he watches the girl tuck a strand of her auburn hair behind her ear and — the redhead.

This is the girl that Gendry thinks is his soulmate. Gendry thinks the most beautiful woman on the face of the planet is _his soulmate,_ and didn’t even give him a chance to mentally prepare. He didn’t even give him a heads-up that she was entering the shop, the bastard.

Jon’s gaze turns sharply towards where Gendry stands at the register, ready to give him an icy glare, but finds that he’s completely occupied by talking to a small, dark-haired girl whilst wearing the most sickeningly lovesick expression he’s ever seen — which explains why he didn’t give Jon a warning, but does little to reduce his irritation.

He’s pulled back to the matter at hand when the girl makes a small noise, something like clearing her throat, and he nods curtly. “Right. Pour the espresso. Got it.” He says, pointedly looking straight down at the coffee he’s making, not trusting himself to be able to look at the beautiful girl in front of him without making himself look like an _idiot._ Even though he probably already has. Which is great.

Jon doesn’t bring himself to make eye contact with her again until it’s time to hand over her drink and he has the decency to feel a little bad when he sees a hint of guilt woven into her expression. “So, you know Gendry?”

“Yeah. Well, kind of?” The girl seems as though she isn’t entirely sure of the answer she’s giving, and Jon raises an eyebrow. “I mean, we’ve never really hung out outside of… well, _here,_ but I’m trying to set him up with my sister, so I guess that kind of makes us friends.”

Jon can’t help but snort at that, shaking his head incredulously as he looks over at Gendry again. “You’re trying to set—”

The girl’s eyes widen again, a hand flying forwards to grab his wrist and silently urge him to stop talking. He obliges, of course because he doesn’t think he could ever actually look at this girl and tell her _no_ — which is, like, a huge fucking problem all on its own — but he can’t keep the smile on his face completely repressed.

“Well, it looks like it’s working to me.” Jon says, this time making sure his voice is significantly quieter this time, even though Gendry is so insanely hyper-focused on the girl he’s talking to Jon could be screaming and Gendry wouldn’t hear a single word. Of course, it might not be Gendry that she’s trying to keep in the dark.

The girl’s entire expression brightens at the praise and Jon has to force himself to ignore the way that his chest tightens. “Do you think they could be soulmates?”

Jon bristles at the word and before he can stop himself, his eyes look down at her hand — her right hand, where her soulmate mark would be if Gendry, somehow, is right and this girl really is his soulmate. Something in his stomach twists when he sees that her pinky is adorned with a ring in the shape of a silver wolf — an image he swears he’s seen before. The thought that there might be something hiding beneath its thick band makes an uncomfortable kind of anxiety bubble up in him, and he feels himself begin to put walls back up, again. “Do they have to be?”

“I mean, it’s ideal, isn’t it?” She asks, sounding a little taken aback. Which… Jon gets it. It isn’t often that you come across someone who’s willing to speak so openly against the institution of soulmates, but he can’t help the small twinge of discontent that surfaces when he realizes that she _does_ buy into it all.

“They’re bullshit.”

What he doesn’t expect is the way her lips curl up into a wry sort of smile. Really, it’s kind of the exact polar opposite of what almost every other person in the world has done when they heard him say something like that. “Right, it’s the age-old problem of free will. How are we meant to determine our own meanings in life, or even establish any kind of moral responsibility if we’re going to blindly accept a supposed fate we’re given?”

Jon is floored. Stunned. Speechless. Like, he already _knew_ that whatever Existentialism paper she’s writing was, apparently, spot-on with his own views, but _Seven fucking Hells,_ Gendry might be right. This girl — this fantastic, beautiful, Philosophy inclined girl — might be the only thing standing between himself and the views he’d been holding onto for his whole life.

Before he can say or do anything stupid — like, maybe, drop to his knees and profess his love to her on the spot — her sister interrupts. “Sansa, are you ready to head out?”

“I’ll see you around?” She asks, and all Jon can do is nod dumbly while the mantra ringing inside of his head is chanting _Sansa, Sansa, Sansa._ The tiny, dark **S** that’s been etched into the inside of his left pinky feels like it’s _burning._

It isn’t until Sansa and her sister are both gone and Gendry is occupied with a new customer at the register that he dares to look down and steal a glance. Something deep inside of him already knew what was coming, but it’s still a lot to process when, for the first time in twenty-one years, the mark on his skin is different.

Now, looking up at him are _two_ distinct letters — **SA.**

* * *

Sansa should be happy. She should be fucking _thrilled._ Everything about her plan to set up Arya and Gendry was seemingly going off without a hitch. Her sister, who she’d never seen have a crush on _anyone ever in her life,_ couldn’t shut up about Gendry for the rest of the day following their meeting. Even in the days to come, Sansa found herself having to repress a grin and only allow her emotions out via a text to Theon whenever Arya mentioned Gendry in a conversation.

It was all going _perfectly._ Yet, there was still something about that day she was hung up on — something entirely unrelated to Arya, Gendry, or their budding relationship, for that matter.

For some reason that Sansa cannot manage to put her finger on for the life of her, she finds that it’s nearly impossible to get the other barista out of her head. At first chalks it up to the fact that he’s probably, definitely the _hot, brooding barista_ that Margaery had mentioned in the attempt to lure her into the shop in the first place.

That doesn’t, however, do much to explain the way her heart drops a fraction when Arya convinces her to join her for coffee between classes in the afternoons. It doesn’t justify the subliminal hints of disappointment she feels when, instead of getting to talk to _him_ while Arya and Gendry flirt at the counter, she has to chat with Theon, instead.

She doesn’t even know his _name,_ she realizes, and she’s not going to try to ask someone for it now. Especially not when one of the only people she _could_ ask is fucking _Theon,_ who would do nothing short of tease her mercilessly the moment he caught on to any hint of a crush.

She’s hung up on it all, unable to make any sense of what’s going on inside her own mind, but her clarity comes soon enough.

It’s exactly five days after she first met the other barista, as she’s washing her face before bed, that she sees it. Beside the **A** that has existed on her pinky all her life is a new letter. An **E** , so tiny it’s not surprising that she hasn’t noticed it yet.

She examines it for a moment, rubs her thumb against it to ensure it won’t rub off, blinks a few times to be certain she isn’t imagining it. For a split second, she considers rushing to show Arya, who is only a few steps away in her room, or even send a picture of it to Margaery, but ultimately decides against it.

She cannot clearly recall the last time that she properly looked at her tattoo and, therefore, cannot confidently determine how long the **E** has been there. Definitely days, possibly weeks, perhaps even a month.

Sansa begins to feel dizzy as she thinks about all the different people she’d come into contact with in the uncertain time frame so she forces herself to stop and _breathe_ for a minute. She can’t deny the instinctive curiosity that accompanied the appearance of her second letter, but intrigue isn’t enough to change what she’s been steadfast in believing for so many years. Even if she _does_ figure out who her alleged soulmate is, she’s not completely sure she would want to be with them. She’s not completely sure she wants to be with _anyone._ Not now.

Instead, Sansa slips her ring back on, the letters small and the metal band wide enough for the new addition to remain securely tucked away as a secret that only she knows.

Despite herself, as she crawls beneath the covers on her bed, her mind travels to the stupid, hot, brooding barista whose name she didn’t know that stared at her like she was hanging the fucking stars in the sky when she used Philosophy to counteract the notion of soulmates.

She pushes the thought away to the best of her ability, but that night she still dreams about a hand reaching out for hers — a hand holding an _Americano, double shot_ with the letters **SA** on the inside of its pinky.


End file.
